Mammoth Mountain Picked Up 6 to 12 Inches of Powder!!! More on the Way…..

Friday November 9, 2012

Posted at 8:28 am by Howard

According to Cliff Man of Mammoth Mt Ski area…..6 inches of cold dry powder fell at the Main Lodge with up to 12 inches above McCoy Station……More light snowfall is expected today as winds continue to diminish….

WX Discussion:

A Cold Upper Trof is currently over California with numerous showers associated with a Vort Center now climbing the northern portion of the Southern Sierra. It is snow showering again on Mammoth Mountain. The Vort Center and its associated UVM is progged to move mainly south of our area effecting the Southern Sierra the most. Nevertheless, snow showers will occur the remaining part of the morning and possibly into the afternoon as the air aloft is pretty unstable. Latest RAMSIS showing lots of cold open Cellular Cu headed south down the coast on the Cyclonic side of the upper jet. Some of that is swinging inland today into the Southern Sierra. By tomorrow Saturday, the back side of the trof and its associated 115 Knot upper jet will translate (N/S) eastward across California…so expect winds to pick up out of the north over the Sierra Crest and Owens Valley Saturday afternoon. Some Snow shower activity is still possible Saturday morning and into the afternoon as UVM is still indicated….700RH holds in the 70% range until 00z Sunday. So expect both rapid drying and radiational cooling Saturday evening leading to a very cold night! lows +7F to -5F by Vets AM.

Medium Range:

Short wave ridging builds in Monday for rapidly moderating temps early next week. High temps are expected back up to the low 50s.

The next weather system is being handled differently by the global models as a splitting system that either weakens pretty rapidly as it moves into the Central Sierra (GFS) either Wednesday or Late Thursday. The deterministic run of the ECMWF from last night had more energy into the Southern Sierra Friday. So at the moment, I am not too excited about this system. We may get light amounts or we may get nothing. Additionally, the run from last night EC slowed the storm down well off the coast, while building a ridge over western Canada. I will track both GFS and EC for consistency and see which one seem to have the better handle on it over the weekend. In the meantime for planning purposes, this does not look like a big deal. What may actually happen is that the storm gets stalled next week and waits for some upstream kicker to boot it in later in the week like Friday. It is the storm that is brewing in back of next weeks splitting system that is of interest! 😉

Longer range:

Both Global Models are touting slow retrogression of the long wave features through Days 10 and 11. This is usually good news if we get good amplification up stream and a consolidation of the upper jet. The 00Z Friday ECMWF had a storm of significance in our future for the 18th/19 of Nov. And last nights 00z GFS has a good one as well about the same time frame…possibly a day sooner. In fantasyland, yet another one about Thanksgiving. So for the time being things are looking up for more snowfall before Thanksgiving Day and during holiday weekend…..